Odds Against Tomorrow

An adaptation of a novel by William P. McGivern, "Odds Against Tomorrow" is a perfectly absorbing example of socially conscious crime-noir. Ed Begley plays Dave Burke, a disgraced former cop who recruits two other participants for a bank job. Earl Slater (Robert Ryan) is a two-time loser with a frustrated girlfriend (Shelley Winters), and Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) is a nightclub entertainer with a weakness for playing the horses. Both are in serious need of some cash, but tensions between the two will be inevitable, because Johnny is black and Earl is an unrepentant racist.

Vivid portraits of the personal lives of Earl and Johnny are created in a film that functions mainly as a character study. The big bank heist doesn't take place until the final quarter hour of the film. But director Robert Wise, who moved from genre to genre with ease during his career, guides it all in style. Wise gets excellent performances out of his entire cast. Supporting roles are played by Gloria Grahame (Earls' neighbour Helen), Will Kuluva (the mobster Bacco), Kim Hamilton (Johnny's ex-wife Ruth), and Richard Bright and Lew Gallo (as two of Bacco's henchmen). In small roles, both credited and uncredited, you'll see the likes of Wayne Rogers, Zohra Lampert, Robert Earl Jones, Barney Martin, Mel Stewart, and Cicely Tyson. Anchoring the tale are three highly engaging portrayals by Begley, Belafonte, and Ryan. The latter shines in one of his notable antagonist roles; Earl is such a pathological bigot that it undermines his effectiveness when push comes to shove.

"Odds Against Tomorrow" is strikingly scored, by John Lewis, and photographed, by Joseph C. Brun. Familiar names among the crew include renowned editor Dede Allen and costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone. The screenplay is the work of Nelson Gidding and the blacklisted Abraham Polonsky, who was originally credited under a pseudonym.

This is gripping entertainment that doesn't waste time, wrapping up in a taut 97 minutes. The finale is truly explosive stuff, with a very pertinent comment on humanity right at the end.

Eight out of 10.

Odds Against Tomorrow is a decent, somewhat unimaginative crime picture with a message. It's mostly about three man who plan a robbery, and their reasons why. Robert Wise directed, and Harry Belafonte was the star-producer. There's an unfortunate air of deja vu about the picture, as this kind of story had become all too common by the time it was made. Indeed, director Robert Wise had made crime movies before, and had worked with Robert Ryan before, too, on the excellent The Set-Up. This one was filmed mostly on location in New York, and nicely reflects life at the lower but not quite lowest depths of that city.

It's worth seeing for the acting, which is good much of the time, and on occasion excellent. Belafonte's performance as a compulsive gambler is pleasingly cool and refined, like everything he does. I found it difficult to accept him as a loser, though. He seemed too good looking. There's a sharp rather than forlorn edge to him, and had a white actor been cast instead it would have been someone like Jack Klugman. His miscasting not withstanding, Belafonte manages to more than hold his own with his co-stars, not, I would imagine, an easy thing to do. Robert Ryan is the sociopath of the piece, and he'd perhaps been down this road once too often. In his peak years,--the late forties and early fifties--Ryan was one of the best bad men in the movies. He's still pretty good here, but a bit long in the tooth to be punching out Wayne Rogers in a bar, since he's old enough to be Rogers' father. Ryan aged badly, and his somewhat dissipated look makes him less intimidating than he ought to be. The key to his character's nastiness is his racism, which is laid on a bit heavy at times. Why this Southern redneck is living in a city where he is surrounded by the kinds of people he despises is never made clear. I wish it had been.

What saved the movie for me is Ed Begley's performance as the ex-cop who plans the robbery. Begley was one of the best American actors in the business at this time. He was for various personal reasons a late bloomer, and he didn't come into his own in films and on television until he was well into his fifties. He shows here a keen understanding of the sort of man toward whom life has been cruel, personally and professionally, and he gives a performance, smart and without a trace of self-pity, worthy of Eugene O'Neill. His work is vastly superior to the film itself, and he makes the movie worth seeing. Begley was one of a handful of actors who could singlehandedly make a film come alive, and who made too few movies worthy of him. While certain gifted actors,--John Malkovich, Tommy Lee Jones--get more than their share of opportunities to shine, Begley belongs to the group that got too few chances. I think of Sam Jaffe, Laird Cregar and James Anderson, actors whom I would like to have seen do many more films than they made. Begley makes this one worth seeing, and he singlehandedly lifts it up in quality, almost to the level of tragedy.

Odds Against Tomorrow is a sharp little Black-and-White noir caper movie. Robert Ryan is very good as a southern accented hateful bigot. He's teamed with the sharp dressed, compulsive gambler Harry Belafonte. Belafonte financed the movie. No doubt that's why the bouncy jazz soundtrack is so good. The movie's pairing of the two builds to an explosive finale following the heist that goes about as wrong as it could. Also starring Ed Begley is the leader of the gang. He's also excellent as the one man keeping the caper on track and keeping the two crooks from killing each other.

Here's what Begley says after one of Ryan's racial slurs:

"Don't beat out that Civil War jazz here, Slater! We're all in this together, each man equal. And we're taking care of each other. It's one big play, our one and only chance to grab stakes forever. And I don't want to hear what your grandpappy thought on the old farm down in Oklahoma! You got it?"

A worthwhile caper for fans of noir or Belafonte.

Influenced by the more comic The Asphalt Jungle

Oscar-winning director Robert Wise ("West Side Story", "The Sound of Music") directs Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters and Ed Begley to masterful performances in this grounbreaking, revelatory film. Earl Slater (Ryan) is a bigoted small-time petty thief with a supportive but hapless live-in lover (Winters). Johnny Ingram (Belafonte) is a down on his luck hustler/drummer who gets involved with a bank robbery scheme with Dave Burke (Begley). Slater is also in on the heist, but must come to terms with his racist views with Ingram in order to pull off the plan. This is an incredibly clear-eyed, no holds barred look at the kind of segregation that was alive at the time, with superb performances by all, including Gloria Grahame as Ryan and Winters' love-starved neighbor, Helen, and Kim Hamilton as Belafonte's ex-wife, Ruth. The film dosen't resort to theatrics to build its tension; that comes naturally, due to excellent ensemble work by the cast, a great jazz score by John Lewis and Joseph C. Brun's gritty camerawork. An influential, brilliant film, not to be missed. ***1/2

Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow grinds along to an inevitable conclusion, but offers a great performance by Ed Begley as Dave Burke, an ageing ex con looking to set up one last job. Filmed in black and white in winter in New York (both the city and a small-town upstate venue where the bank is) it has a drabness that permeates the whole film. Robert Ryan plays racist small-timer Earle Slater, who must team up with Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) a jazz singer/vibraphonist who owes gambling debts to mobster Bacco played by Will Kuluva. Shelley Winters plays Slater's girlfriend Lorrie, a lonely woman with a steady job trying to buy his affection. Their relationship is based more on mutual need than love, her for sex and him for the money and company. Begley as Dave Burke must referee between his two cohorts. The racial tension between Slater and Ingram is carried to the extreme, and in the end it is what does in the heist. The subdued jazzy musical score combined with the bleak photography make this one moody movie. While the ending for Begley is pure drama, for Ryan and Belafonte it is too ironic for its own good, a clear example of the so-called message interfering with the plot, or maybe the message was the plot.